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Justin's blog

I read the saddest thing today. Researchers once played the sound of a now deceased elephant to her family in the wild. The others immediately went looking for her – and her daughter pitifully called for her for days afterwards. The researchers never repeated the experiment.

Long-time Viva! supporter, Joyce Moss, here guest blogs about the story of Minty - a tiny wild boar hoglet rescued from certain death. Read about Minty's progress and what you can do to help end the persecution of wild boar in Britain (Justin Kerswell, Viva! campaigns manager)

Whenever we go undercover to expose animal abuse, one of the questions we are often asked by supporters is whether we have reported our findings to the authorities and what they are doing about them? There is a widespread misconception that farmed animals are protected from suffering and the laws in place are up to the job. In reality, that simply isn’t true.

Every year without fail, Viva! is approached to make comment about someone selling reindeer meat in the run up to Christmas in Britain. And almost without fail – with a couple of notable exceptions – all the tabloids really want is a story about some supermarket or other ruining Christmas by serving up one of ‘Santa’s four-legged helpers’.

The guns have fallen silent over Gloucestershire and Somerset. For now, badgers can slumber peacefully throughout the winter months, but what is to come next spring? We shouldn’t take the ending of the ‘cull’ earlier than intended as a sign of complacency or an admission of defeat by the Government. If anything, the resolve to continue – and expand – the killing fields next year has taken on a new zeal.